I’ve got sex on my mind today. It’s not because I’ve suddenly morphed into a 13 year old boy. It’s because there are a lot of headlines today about sex, which also made me think about missing sex headlines and false sex headlines.

First, of course, the Herman Cain sex headlines: Back in the 1990s, two women accused Herman Cain of sexual harassment when he was working at the National Restaurant Association, and the NRA subsequently settled the claims for five figure amounts. I have several thoughts on this subject. First, this story is not the same as the Anita Hill charges against Clarence Thomas. Hill did not make her charges contemporaneously. Instead, she emerged out of nowhere at just the right time for Democrats to conduct a high tech lynching against a high profile black conservative. In this case, the charges were made at a time when Cain was just another executive. The report is therefore more credible than Hill’s claims.

Peculiarly enough, though, at least from my lawyerly point of view, the fact that the charges date back to 1990 makes the charges less, rather than more, damning in my eyes. Why? Because the 1990s were a wonderful time for plaintiffs’ attorneys bringing sexual harassment charges. Why? Because the Ninth Circuit had just handed down a decision vastly expanding the definition of workplace sexual harassment.* Suddenly, the claim made each lawsuit akin to shooting fish in a barrel. Your female client didn’t get promoted? Sexual harassment. Your female client got fired? Sexual harassment. Your female client found the office “uncomfortable”? Sexual harassment. Your female client was caught embezzling? Sexual harassment.

Panicked executives (and their insurance companies) settled left and right. Some of the claims involved genuine sexual harassers, but these legitimate claims were lost in the flurry of easy-money lawsuits. Executives, their corporations and their insurance companies were simply loath to start rolling in the litigation mud. The lawsuits (and I defended a few) were absolutely awful. The executives were accused of heinous misdeeds, their every action was scrutinized, the corporation had to bear the burden of having every employee and every piece of paper in the corporation scrutinized, and the suits often morphed into class actions, which invariably primarily benefit the attorneys. Valid claims (and I know there were valid claims) got lost in a sea of what amounted to legal blackmail. So did Cain harass two employees? Who knows. The accusations are meaningless, as are the settlements.

The charges against Herman Cain got me thinking about the sex claims the major media is ignoring. That would be the assaults that seem to be part and parcel of the Occupy movement. So far, only the New York Post seems to be paying attention, both to the stories and to the cover-up. Here’s just one example from a rash of similar stories:

A sex fiend barged into a woman’s tent and sexually assaulted her at around 6 a.m., said protesters, who chased him from the park.

“Pervert! Pervert! Get the f–k out!” said vigilante Occupiers, who never bothered to call the cops.

“They were shining flashlights in his face and yelling at him to leave,” said a woman who called herself Leslie, but refused to give her real name.

She said that weeks earlier another woman was raped.

“We don’t tell anyone,” she said. “We handle it internally. I said too much already.”

You would think that a story that’s all about sex would be front page, top of the news stuff, but it’s not. The media knows its place, and its place does not include bad-mouthing the movement its president fomented.

My mentioning the president here isn’t a random, drive-by attack against Obama. I was thinking of another series of alleged sexual attacks that took place when another president was in office. As you may recall, when Hurricane Katrina struck, we were told that, within a mere three days of the disaster, New Orleans’ citizens weren’t just raping and murdering each other, they were eating each other too. The MSM couldn’t get enough of reports about sexual assaults on Bush’s watch. (Never mind that the City was officially under the aegis of Democrat Mayor Ray Nagin). As far as I know, very few of those claims were true, and the cannibalism one was definitely a canard.

Sex sells, but as far as the media is concerned, it’s a product they want to market only when it can blacken Republican eyes.

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*I’m pulling a complete blank right now on the standard the Ninth Circuit created, but when/if I remember, I’ll update the post to add that information.

Would the case you are blanking on, Book, be Ellison v. Brady (924 F.2d 872 (9th Cir. 1991) in which the 9th Circuit decided that it doesn’t matter if the alleged harasser intended to be harassing or complimentary rejecting the “reasonable person’ standard used by the trial court instead opting for a “reasonable woman” argument in which the alleged victim perceived the conduct severe and pervasive enough to change the work environment so as to create an offensive environment from which sexual harassment can be found?

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You are on target with the Zeitgeist of the dawn of the sexual harassment movement. Though it’s a bit like the racist theme. Why are they staring at me? I am black, it must be because I am black not because I have something in my teeth. Why are they staring at my fine butt? It must be because they are sexual predators and not because I painted my jeans on today. This brings up the same problem with the sexual offender data base where the categories are never really considered. A seventeen year old and a sixteen year old are sexually active. The boy turns 18 and his girl is 16 +355 days and they get busted by her man hating mom. He is now a registered ‘sex offender’ for life even though he was engaging in school sponsored (EG Free Condoms) activity.

Regarding payouts. My wife was hit by a bicyclist that was on the wrong side of the road – against traffic, riding in a cross walk and running the red light and our insurance paid out $300 even the though the girl admitted fault. I am sure they bought future insurance against injury but our rates went up for the hush money.

AUTHORIZED BY DEBBIE WS FROM DNC TO GIVE HIM 50 LASHES AND RETURN HIM TO HIS MASTERS.

FILM AT NOON.

Caped Crusader

FOLLOW UP ON RUNAWAY SLAVE HERMAN CAIN

AFTER THE LASHES HE WILL BE RETURNED IN RECYCLED DEMOCRAT CHAINS; BUT TO SHOW DEMOCRAT COMPASSION HE WILL BE GIVEN A NEW EBT CARDAND SECTION 8 HOUSING

Libby

The vague mention of non-sexual gestures also reminds me of the charges against John Bolton when he was nominated ambassador to the United Nations. They dredged up an incident 10+ years prior where he threw a file at a woman which was then construed as him having ongoing workplace anger issues and disrespect for women.

Insurance companies are always, always, always eager to settle if the cost of the settlement will be less than the cost of defense plus damages. Back when this happened, buying coverage against sexual harrassment was not as frequent as it is now, but I’m guessing a board of directors would feel exactly the same way: it’s just prudent. So if the board could give each of these women $10,000 (five figures, you know) and make the claims go away, they would be foolish not to do so.

This is just a measurement of how unhappy the media are about Herman Cain and his growing popularity. The media want Romney because they think he is another McCain and they are going to do anything they can to make us end up with him.

If we want to win with a conservative candidate, a real Republican, those of us who know how to avoid the MSM or how to find “the rest of the story” must educate our friends who are not so inclined to read blogs and find news outside the usual outlets so they will understand the true motive behind stories like this.

The Power of the Left is not that they can make their fanatics do and believe whatever they say. They have been doing this for decades. The issue facing America today is that the LEft can also make Republicans do and say what the Left tells them. That’s an issue that people better start recognizing, if they don’t want to wake up as slave in some soon to be future.

You would think that a story that’s all about sex would be front page, top of the news stuff, but it’s not. The media knows its place, and its place does not include bad-mouthing the movement its president fomented.

Damn straight the media knows their place. If I was in charge of Leftist ground operations, I’d be making sure the media propaganda arm knew exactly what the consequences would be if they disobeyed me in any way, shape, or form. The Left are no better than me, and a lot dumber and slow to boot.

Would the case you are blanking on, Book, be Ellison v. Brady (924 F.2d 872 (9th Cir. 1991) in which the 9th Circuit decided that it doesn’t matter if the alleged harasser intended to be harassing or complimentary rejecting the “reasonable person’ standard used by the trial court instead opting for a “reasonable woman” argument in which the alleged victim perceived the conduct severe and pervasive enough to change the work environment so as to create an offensive environment from which sexual harassment can be found?

I missed my calling and opted for Art History because there was less writing and thinking.

suek

Note:

When I signed on to the home page, I had no problem. When I clicked on one of the responses to this article, I got one of those horrendous “THIS SITE IS UNTRUSTED” pages from Foxfire (my preferred browser). I clicked on the “gimme the page anyway” button, but I must say – I wonder if someone is messing with your site??

My son has gotten me a bit paranoid about internet hacking, but there _are_ pros out there who will do anything to take down those who don’t agree with them…

I’m getting the same thing, Suek, so I’m forwarding your email to Trip. You’re right to be paranoid. I certainly am.

Caped Crusader

I use Firefox on a Mac and have no such problems. I remember Book mentioning her website would never have a large following and in the last few months notice that my city comes up only about 10% of the times I am on.

Hi, Site Administrator here: RE: “When I clicked on one of the responses to this article, I got one of those horrendous “THIS SITE IS UNTRUSTED” pages from Foxfire”.

This is nothing to worry about. Both of you are trying to access the site using SSL which you technically shouldn’t be doing. (notice the https). Since Bookworm doesn’t own an SSL certificate I automatically use the one generated by the server on which Bookworm is hosted, which is a different name than bookwormroom.com. Firefox notes the difference and gives you a warning.

Not sure how you are getting to an https based link but you should be going to the http version instead. You would only need https to sell stuff from bookwormroom.com but Bookwormroom isn’t an e-commerce site so this would be unnecessary.